"Well!" said Miss Phoebe, dryly. "Did the child get well? And where does Doctor Strong's infidelity come in?"
"The child would have got well," said Mrs. Weight, with tragic emphasis. "The child might be well, or near it, this living day of time, if the Ordering of Providence had not been interfered with. The child had a spell of stomach trouble, and Doctor Strong was sent for. He ordered the dog out of the house; said it had fleas, and sore eyes, and I don't know what. Susan Sloper is a weak woman, and she gave in, and that child goes humpbacked to its grave. I hope Doctor Strong is prepared to answer for it at the Last Day."
Miss Phoebe laid down her knitting-needles; but before she could reply,
Doctor Strong himself came in, bringing the breeze with him.
"How do you do, Mrs. Weight?" he said, heartily. "How is Billy? croupy again? Does he go out every day? Do you keep his window open at night, and give him a cold bath every morning? Fresh air and bathing are absolutely necessary, you know, with that tendency. Have you taken off all that load of flannel?"
Mrs. Weight muttered something about supper-time, and fled before the questioner. The young doctor turned to his hostess, with the quick, merry smile he had. "I had to send her away!" he said. "You are flushed, Miss Blyth, and Miss Vesta is tired. Yes, you are, Miss Vesta; what is the use of denying it?"
He placed a cushion behind Miss Vesta, and she nestled against it with a little comfortable sigh. She looked at the young doctor kindly, and he returned the look with one of frank affection.
"Your mother must have had a sight of comfort with you," said Miss
Vesta. "You are a home boy, any one can see that."
"I know when I am well off!" said the young doctor.
Geoffrey Strong certainly was well off. In some singular way, which no one professed wholly to understand, he had won the confidence of both the "Blyth girls," who were usually considered the most exclusive and "stand-offish" people in Elmerton. He made no secret of being in love with Miss Vesta. He declared that no one could see her without being in love with her. "Because you are so lovely, you know!" he said to her half a dozen times a day. The remark never failed to call up a soft blush, and a gentle "Don't, I pray you, my dear young friend; you shock me!"
"But I like to shock you," the young doctor would reply. "You look prettiest when you are shocked." And then Miss Vesta would shake her pretty white curls (she was not more than sixty, but her hair had been gray since her youth), and say that if he went on so she must really call Sister Phoebe; and Master Geoffrey would go off laughing.